Its on one of thoes days when one pretended to be a responsible person. This led me to have my fist hand experience on how an introduction(Okwanjula) is conducted according to the Ugandan traditions in all its colours and forms. Taking part in this tradition makes one realize and actualize something I had always wondered about but not cared to find out what might have been the contemporary root cause. Why a man can get to see his wife as his property.
Becoming of a norm of in our traditions regarding the Bridal price. A woman is a property that a man can buy if he has enough cows or if he can borrow from a bank and friends. Then when he has paid whatever her family has requested, he can do as he like. The wife can’t run back home if things get difficult because then the family has to pay everything back. Additionally, with a given as a means in the end that she produces child, it’s expected that she is an obedient wife.
If she can’t provide that for him for whatever reason she becomes worthless. Like a piece of land, barren and nothing can grow.
So on a personal note I’d like for my wife to be able to exercise freedoms and to build a relationship reciprocal in nature. Because when she stays I know she does it because she wants to. Not because of my money, status or because she has nowhere to run. Then I would have the same freedom in return. I’ve always been sceptical towards marriage and what that does to people because I saw this mentality of the man owning the woman for as long as I can remember. But we are not in need of those practises anymore, or the least we can do is question them. We know that a woman is equally capable as a man and should therefore be equally responsible. It is up to us the young ones who have grown up in a new time to keep, revise and change those traditions still making sense and get rid of those that don’t. We leave what we don’t want to carry on to the next generation and value the traditions that we want our children to experience and thrive from. Atleast, that’s what I hope to do.
